


"how will it happen?"

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, there's a machine that tells you how you're going to die and it has no idea what to do with Lovelace, welcome to "I find it fascinating when Lovelace dies"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 11:52:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12058437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle
Summary: The machines can tell you what you die from. Not when, or where, just how.There's one in the Goddard Futuristics lobby.--AU with "Machine of Death". Look it up, it's really cool.





	"how will it happen?"

The machines were new, and they were shiny, and they were only available to install for the wealthiest of customers. Most importantly, though, they were here- one sitting in the corner of the Goddard Futuristics lobby, gleaming metallically in the fluorescent lighting. It was different from the polygraph machine she had just been hooked up to, different from all the brushed chrome and steel around the place. It looked like the pictures she had only ever seen in magazines. It looked  _ interesting.  _

Lovelace had always been a sucker for interesting.

After her approval in the space program-  _ the space program, she was going to space, she was going to the Leo constellation- _ Lovelace had exited the offices, waving goodbye to Rachel as she turned away to head across the hall to the lobby. The polished marble of the floor stretched in front of her, another reminder of how important this place was. No cracked linoleum for them, no stained carpets. Just stone and bright steel fittings, a tasteful waterfall fountain flowing calmly over rocks in the corner, the receptionist scribbling busily on a pad of paper as she talked on the phone to someone. A steady, but not overwhelming, flow of people in and out. And the machine, in the corner, with a slot and a hole dimpling the metal of the front, looking like a vending machine from the future. A plaque on the wall next to it. Discreet letters, stenciled neatly in black, ran across the top.  _ Machine of Death.  _ Lovelace had never even thought she’d see one in person, let alone use one. And yet… there it sat. For a second, just a second, she considered just leaving and not looking back. 

_ Yeah, right. _

She walked over to it, boots clomping over that pristine marble, heading directly for it. When she got there, she stood, looking at it. Then she turned to read the plaque, which indicated the instructions for the machine and gave a help line at the bottom, to call in case of a malfunction. It looked straightforward enough: just put your finger in the hole. It would draw a bit of blood, and then a card would be spit out from the slot, like the world’s most morbid receipt. Then Lovelace would know how she was going to die. She hesitated for half a second more, then made a decision. "Alright, then. How will it happen?"

Isabel Lovelace inserted her finger into the machine, and prayed for- something. For something good. 

For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what “good” meant, in terms of deaths. 

The pinprick of the needle came more suddenly than she had expected, and she yelped and jerked back, even though it hurt less than getting a shot at the doctor’s office. “Ow!” She pulled her finger out and stuck it in her mouth, tasting the tiny bit of bloody salt from the needle prick. The hurt was gone in an instant, and then there was nothing left to do but wait as the machine whirred and processed. Then it spat out a white card with a ticker-tape noise, the same weight and shape as a business card. The roiling nausea in her stomach reaching a crescendo, Lovelace tore it out and flipped it over, exposing the plain black text printed on it. 

_ IN YOUR SLEEP, ALONE. _

For a second there was nothing as her vision narrowed down to the card, blocking everything else out.  _ IN YOUR SLEEP, ALONE.  _ Straightforward, simple. Nothing of a mystery there. Not even a bad way to die, all things considered. But there was a bitter taste of something in Lovelace’s mouth, something that might have been… disappointment? Regret? Not anguish. But something. She was going to die alone, in her sleep, at some unspecified future time. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. 

Lovelace was jerked out of her reverie by another ticker-tape clicking, looking at the machine as another card came out of the opening. She looked at the one in her hand, then at the one in the slot. For all appearances, they were identical. “What the fuck?” A passing businessman looked at her oddly for her comment, and she gave him a flat look. He rolled his eyes and hurried away, and she turned back to the machine, then reached up and pulled out the card for a second time. Flipping it over again, she read it.

_ FATALLY WOUNDED SAVING A LOVED ONE. _

_ What?   _ That was some sort of contradiction, it had to be. How could she die saving another and do it alone in her sleep? How could that-

The machine clicked again, and a third card spat out. Lovelace reached up quickly and practically tore it out, her eyes scanning over it quickly.  _ GUNSHOT. _

“Okay, seriously, what the fuck?!” Lovelace glared at the machine, addressing it. “What is going on here?” The machine was silent for a moment, sitting there like the inanimate object it was. Then it whirred to life again, and a fourth card slid out into the opening. Lovelace glanced at it, then at the machine. Then she took it, slowly, and read the crisp black letters.

_ YOU DON’T. _

Lovelace left quickly, practically running out through the revolving door and into the afternoon sunlight. Outside the building, the cards seemed to lose some of their ethereal prediction indication. They were just cards again, though they were admittedly disturbing. Lovelace looked at them for another second, then rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. She shoved them deep into her pants pocket and hailed a cab. 

All the way home, she told herself the machine was defective. She was very convincing, too. Enough so that it might as well have been true. 

She packed the cards with the rest of her things anyways. 

* * *

Dr. Selberg’s body floated limply in the low gravity, and Lovelace’s entire body shook with fatigue and adrenaline and anxiety as she clung to the walls, fighting the urge to vomit because being sick in space just meant a mess that was almost impossible to clean up and she had seen too many of those. The wrench she had used to knock him out floated limply from her fingers, dangling several feet away, and she looked at it for a moment. Then she pulled herself up, gathering herself together.

“Okay, Captain,” she said out loud to herself, because Lovelace’s brain always worked better when she talked things through. “What now? Stay here, with this asshole? Flush him out the airlock? But then you’re still stuck here. You need to go. You need to leave, don’t you? You’ve got a promise to deliver on, there are people who need to be held accountable. You can’t stay. So… get on the shuttle. Lock yourself in cryo, get on the course for Earth. Get out, get there, get revenge. Don’t die up here in space like a coward.” She took a deep breath. “Right. The shuttle. Step one.” 

She made her way to the docking bay, where the shuttle was anchored and ready to leave. The navigation instruments were set on a course for Earth, charted through the stars in a route she had checked over and over, obsessing on constantly. The engine was primed, the cryo chamber was open, everything was ready to go. All she had to do was climb in, launch, and then freeze herself into a long sleep. Then she could get back to Earth and rain fire and fucking doom on everyone. Lovelace laughed a little at that, a bitter chuckle that tore at her throat. “Revenge is  _ definitely  _ not going to be a dish served cold.” 

Lovelace climbed into the shuttle and launched off into space, and for a minute as she looked at the stats she was worried; the star’s gravity was strong, and it might pull her off course. But things seemed to be steadier after that, going smoothly. Slowly, keeping an eye on the readouts and controls around her, Lovelace unstrapped herself from the pilot’s chair and headed to the cryo chamber. It gaped like an open mouth waiting to eat her, and her body tensed as she looked at it. Unbidden, the memories of her death slips came back to her, as they had been doing every day on that damn station. The first one, especially.  _ IN YOUR SLEEP, ALONE. _

“I’m not going to die here.” Her voice sounded hoarse and weak, but it cleared as she spoke. “I’m not going to die before I destroy every single one of those bastards so, so much more thoroughly than they did to me and my crew. When I die-”  _ If I die. “When  _ I die, I’m taking them with me.” She smiled at nothing. “Besides, the damn thing was defective anyways.” 

The cryo chamber said nothing, and Lovelace rolled her eyes and climbed in, ignoring the yawning pit in her gut as ice closed over her and the world lapsed into darkness.

* * *

“Minkowski, look out!”

The station shook in a blur of motion, booming and screeching with the sounds of tearing metal, and Lovelace shoved the Commander away, just before the panel came off the wall and slammed into and through her abdomen with a wet noise that only she could hear. Then it was over, the silence ringing loud in her ears, almost tangible. The crew talking dully. And blood, bright and red, gushing from Lovelace’s belly, over her hands pressed to it. A prophecy fulfilled. 

_ FATALLY WOUNDED SAVING A LOVED ONE. _

Minkowski turned around, her dark hair floating in a corona around her head, and her eyes widened in horror. “Captain Lovelace!”

Lovelace tried for a smile, but the world was fuzzy and her muscles were slack. “Oh.. that’s not… good…” 

Her body crumpled.

The last thing she could remember clearly, before the stories they told her later of the blood loss and the surgery and her heart stopping, was Minkowski’s face over her. 

_ Saving a loved one. _

* * *

Kepler counted down, his gun pointed at Lovelace’s head, and she smiled.

“It’s okay, Eiffel.” 

_ I’ve known this for a long time. _

It didn’t even hurt.

* * *

Her resurrection was what hurt, as her cells rebuilt her body from the inside out, building her back up to code, repairing her exploded brain. Her lungs hurt as she hacked, coughing in a futile attempt to get enough air, her body gasping and choking while her mind regained consciousness. The fear and concern on Minkowski’s face hurt, even if she couldn’t quite pierce the fog to know why. Seeing Kepler hurt. Her body hurt, every bit of it. It still hurt after she passed out, after she woke up. It hurt up until they took control of her, and then there was nothing to hurt- she was watching from the outside as she burned Kepler’s arm off, as everyone shrank back from her. It didn’t even really hurt when she got back into her flesh suit, flexed her fingers in it. It was just gone.

Just gone. 

Later, it was Minkowski she talked to. Of course it was Minkowski, her eyes still liquid, dried tear tracks still visible on her cheeks. “Well, that’s one mystery solved.” 

“I’m not sure I understand, Captain,” Minkowski said, sounding confused. Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

Lovelace sighed. “I got tested on a Machine of Death, before I came up here. They had one at Goddard headquarters. It… it came up with four different responses for me. God, that confused me for such a long time, it really did. Why did I get so many things? Why did they say what they said?” She shakes her head. “Guess we finally know that.”

“What  _ did  _ they say?” She leaned forwards, staring intently at Lovelace’s face.

“The first one… that said I’d die in my sleep, alone. I didn’t get it then, or before, but I get it now.” Lovelace’s memory flashed back to when she got on the shuttle, to staring into the cryo chamber and wondering if she died this way and deciding she didn’t. “I really did fly into the star. Died in cryosleep. Or, at least, someone died in cryosleep. Isabel Lovelace died in cryosleep.” 

“And the others?”

“There was the second, die saving a-”  _ A loved one, of course it said a loved one, but she wasn’t ready for that and neither was Minkowski _ , “-friend. I saved you from the panel, when I shoved you away, and then my heart stopped. That was straightforward. Then “gunshot”, and Kepler aiming at my head. It was all so clear in that one second. The last one had to be a joke, right? He was going to shoot me, and I’d die. And I did. But fuck it, the machines are never wrong.” She could feel her vision blurring, but she kept herself in check, and it didn't creep into her voice. 

Minkowski swallowed. She moved her hand slightly, as if she was about to reach out and touch Lovelace, but she restrained herself. Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet. “What was the last one?”

Lovelace looked at Minkowski, at her and all her beauty despite how her hair was greying at the roots prematurely, at the solidness of her, and sighed. “It said “you don’t”.” She gave a short laugh, sarcastic and biting. “Ha! Well, that’s obvious. I wonder what it could possibly mean?”

This time Minkowski did reach out, touching her gently on the shoulder before withdrawing. “It means you survive, Captain,” she said. “It means you get to live, regardless of how things go. You deserve that much.” 

Lovelace shook her head. “Nobody deserves this, Minkowski. Nobody. Nobody should be able to cheat death.”

“And yet…"

Four slips. White cardstock, rectangular, the same size and shape as a business card. Clean black text on them, spelling out the future as neatly as a phone number or address.

_ IN YOUR SLEEP, ALONE. _

_ FATALLY WOUNDED SAVING A LOVED ONE. _

_ GUNSHOT. _

_ YOU DON’T. _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so tired. Take it.


End file.
